Brida

Wicca held the wooden spoon in both hands and stretched out both arms.

"Here is the symbol of our ancestors' martyrdom. May the flame that devoured their bodies remain always alight in our souls. Because they are in us. Because we are them."

And she threw the spoon into the fire.

Brida continued to perform the rituals that Wicca had taught her. She kept the candle always burning and danced to the sound of the world. She noted down her meetings with Wicca in the Book of Shadows and went to the sacred wood twice a week. She noticed, to her surprise, that she was beginning to understand more about herbs and plants.

However, the voices that Wicca wanted to awaken did not appear. Nor did she manage to see the point of light above anyone's left shoulder.

"Who knows, perhaps I haven't yet met my Soul Mate," she thought rather fearfully. This was the fate of those who knew the Tradition of the Moon: never to make a mistake when choosing the man in their life. This meant that, from the moment they became a true witch, they would never again nurse the same illusions about love that other people did. True, this would mean less suffering or even no suffering at all, because they could love everything more intensely; finding one's Soul Mate was, after all, a divine mission in everyone's life. Even if, one day, you were forced to part, love for your Soul Mate--according to both Traditions--would always be crowned with glory, understanding, and a kind of purifying nostalgia.

It meant, too, that, from the moment you became able to see the point of light, there would be no Dark Night of Love. Brida thought of the many times she had suffered for love, the nights she had lain awake waiting for a phone call that never came, the romantic weekends that didn't survive the following week, the parties spent glancing anxiously around to see who was there, the joy of making a conquest simply to prove that you could, the sadness and loneliness when you were sure that your best friend's boyfriend was the only man who could possibly make you happy. That was part of her world, and the world of everyone else she knew. That was love, and that was how people had searched for their Soul Mate since time began, by looking into another person's eyes in search of that special light, desire. She had never given much value to such things; on the contrary, she had always thought it pointless to suffer because of someone else, or to feel scared stiff because

you couldn't find anyone with whom to share your life. Now, however, that she had the chance to free herself from such fears forever, she wasn't sure she wanted to.

"Do I really want to be able to see that point of light?"

She thought of the Magus--she was beginning to think he was right and that the Tradition of the Sun was the only way to deal with Love. But she couldn't change her mind now; she knew the path to follow, and she must follow it to the end. She knew that if she gave up now, she would find it harder and harder to make any choices in life.

One afternoon, after a long lesson devoted to rain-making rituals performed by the witches of old--rituals that Brida would have to note down in her Book of Shadows even though she would probably never use them--Wicca asked if she wore all the clothes she owned.

"No, of course I don't," came the reply.

"Well, from now on, wear everything in your wardrobe."

Brida thought perhaps she had misunderstood.

"Everything that contains our energy should be in constant movement," Wicca explained. "The clothes you bought are part of you, and they represent those special times when you left the house wanting to splash out a little because you were happy with the world, times when you'd been hurt and wanted to make yourself feel better or times when you thought you should change your life.

"Clothes always transform emotion into matter. It's one of the bridges between the visible and the invisible. Some clothes can even be harmful because they were made for someone else but have ended up in your hands."

Brida knew what she meant. There were some clothes she couldn't bring herself to wear, because whenever she did, something bad happened.

"Get rid of any clothes that were not intended for you," Wicca went on. "And wear all the others. It's important to keep the soil turned, the waves crashing, and all your emotions in movement. The whole Universe is moving all the time, and we must do likewise."

When she got home, Brida spread out the contents of her wardrobe on the bed. She looked at each item of clothing; there were some she'd completely forgotten about; others brought back happy memories but were no longer fashionable. Brida kept them, though, because they held a special charm, and if she got rid of them, she might be undoing all the good things she had experienced while wearing them.

She looked at the clothes which she felt contained "bad vibrations." She'd always hoped that those bad vibrations might one day become good vibrations and then she would be able to wear the clothes again. However, whenever she put them to the test, the results were invariably disastrous.

She realized that her relationship with clothes was more complicated than she had thought, and yet it was hard to accept Wicca meddling in something as private and personal as the way she dressed. Some clothes had to be kept for special occasions, and only she could say when she should wear them. Others weren't suitable for work or even for going out on the weekend. Why was Wicca so interested in this? She never questioned what Wicca told her to do; she spent her life dancing and lighting candles, plunging knives into water, and learning about rituals she would never use. And she accepted all that because it was part of the Tradition, a Tradition she didn't understand but that was perhaps in touch with her unknown self. But by meddling with her clothes, Wicca was also meddling with her way of being in the world.

Perhaps Wicca had overstepped the bounds of her power. Perhaps she was trying to interfere in things she shouldn't.

"What is outside is harder to change than what is inside."

Someone had said something. Brida instinctively looked around her, knowing that she would find no one.

It was the Voice.

The Voice that Wicca had wanted to awaken.

She managed to curb her feelings of excitement and fear. She remained silent, hoping to hear something else, but there was only the noise from the street, a television some way off, and the omnipresent sound of the world. She tried to sit in the same position as before, to think the same things as before. Everything had happened so fast that she hadn't even felt frightened or surprised or proud.

But the Voice had said something. Even if everyone in the world were to prove to her that it was all just a product of her imagination, even if the witch hunts were to return and she had to stand up in court and risk being burned to death, she was utterly sure that she'd heard a voice that was not her own.

"What is outside is more difficult to change than what is inside." The Voice could perhaps have said something a little more earth shattering, given that this was the first time in her current incarnation that she was hearing it, but suddenly Brida was filled by an intense feeling of joy. She wanted to phone Lorens, to go and see the Magus, to tell Wicca that her Gift had finally been revealed, and that she could now become part of the Tradition of the Moon. She paced the room, smoked a few cigarettes, and only half an hour later did she feel calm enough to sit down again on the bed, along with all her clothes.

The Voice was right. Brida had surrendered her soul to a strange woman and--odd though it might seem--it was far easier to surrender her soul than her way of dressing.